Trade secrets, United States of America

(CCH)/

The federal district court in Hartford, Connecticut, erred in denying judgment as a matter of law in an action in which a manufacturer of thermal flexographic processors alleged that a former partner misappropriated trade secrets engaged in an anticompetitive conspiracy that damaged the manufacturer’s business and hurt customers. The U.S. Court of Appeals in New…

Case Law, United States of America

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

The asserted claims of a DuPont patent disclosing a process for preparing flexographic printing plates were invalid as obvious over prior art and therefore could not support infringement contentions against DuPont’s competitor, MacDermid Printing Solutions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. In addition, MacDermid’s Digital CST printing plates did not…

Case Law, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

Therapeutic effect of a 2-10mg once yearly dosage regimen is made plausible by an example showing clinical effect of dosage regimens of 0.25, 0.50 and 1mg per three months, 2.0 mg every six months and 4.0 mg once a year. For the purpose of the problem-solution approach, two documents describing a treatment of diseases which…

Case Law, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The High Court has granted the Claimants’ request for declarations of non-infringement (“DNIs”) regarding several national designations of the Defendant’s European Patent for a pemetrexed disodium and vitamin B12 combination in respect of reconstitution of the Claimants’ lyophilised pemetrexed product when reconstituted in dextrose solution. The issues in this case were remitted by the Court…

Brexit, European Union, NPE, Unitary Patent, United Kingdom, UPC

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Although patent litigation in Europe is fragmented, businesses have been able to cope and a unitary system may not be strictly necessary for the patent system to function in Europe. However, the new UPC does represent an opportunity to improve the system via greater efficiency and consistency.  Dr Luke McDonagh of the Law School at…

United Kingdom

, (EIP)/

While the subject of the appropriate court fees to pay when issuing proceedings is not normally an exciting one to write about (indeed some readers of this post will say that this remains the case) a recent application concerning the appropriate fees to pay in a trade mark action (Lifestyles Equities CV v Sportsdirect.com Retail…

Case Law, EPO, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

One of the possible methods to examine incentive activity is what is known as the “problem and solution approach” usually applied by the European Patent Office (“EPO”). Spanish Courts like this methodology, as it allows the Judge to subject the opinions expressed by the experts to an objective test. For example, in a judgment of…

Australia, Extent of Protection, NPE, Scope of protection, Validity

, (Clayton Utz)/

On 22 July 2016, IP Australia approved a patent specification involving computer programming in poker machines in Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited [2016] APO 49. IP Australia’s decision comes on the heels of the High Court of Australia’s approval of the Full Federal Court decision in Commissioner of Patents v RPL Central Pty Ltd [2015]…